The Serpents and the Skulls, Chapter 5.2
04 May 2017Michael Wolfe
Rabat was drenched in blood, on his knees before the alter. Across from him was an olive-skinned beauty, equally soaked, locking eyes with the infamous pirate lord. I looked around, shivering. It wasn’t just the chill of the cave- it was the whole thing. Until today, I had only heard of the warrior-mating rites of the Chun clans, but had never witnessed one in person. At my side were the brothers Solomon and Jaz Adissa, the lords of Chun and Mukusibii respectively. Solomon was dressed in full tribal garb, and his brother something more conventional. They weren’t members of Rabat’s crew, but had long dealt with him on terms somewhat akin to equality. Behind us was a large assembly of locals, chanting their approval and blessing in their native tongue.
The tribal chanting reached a climax as both Rabat and his bride- a woman named Asha- sank their teeth into the still-bloody heart of a common foe. In this case, it had been a captured Imperial patron, attempting to muscle his way into Pegasi with his corporate ties and military connections. He- or rather, his hired Imperial mercenaries- had antagonized both Rabat and Solomon Adissa, until the former captured him in a dramatic negotiating table betrayal. Rather than ransom the rich Imperial as he might normally have, he had been able to use the man as leverage to persuade Rabat to marry a woman of Chun. She was a beauty of high birth in Solomon’s ramshackle court, not many years removed from her first moon.
Rabat had at first resisted the idea. He was too young, he claimed. Too enthralled with the business of building an empire. Explaining the situation to him had been a delicate task. Though he was young, I had told him over drinks, he wasn’t as young as he once was. In truth, the first grey hairs had already began to salt his beard. But that wasn’t all. The rest of his clan had either killed each other off or were in hiding. He was its head, true- but he alone carried the responsibility of furthering the Morgan line. As he continued to accrue enemies- and as those enemies became ever more powerful, as with the Imperial patron- his life would only become more dangerous. In the end, he agreed to the union. It would be conducted in the old style, with his friends and associates standing to witness the rites of sacred warrior mating in lieu of his absent family.
The pirate lord and his bride rose, the tough muscle of the patron’s heart settling in their stomachs and the painted-faced priest holding their bound hands high for the audience to witness. Their palms had been slashed by the priest’s ceremonial knife, their blood intermingling the entire ceremony. It was a display of symbolism that even the dullest wit could understand- Rabat and Asha were now of one blood, and thus were the clans Morgan and Adissa. The woman herself was not related to Solomon, but she didn’t need to be. In Pegasi, clan hierarchies were determined by ruthless action more than lineage.
The stone chamber erupted in cheers, myself among them. Rabat kept his and his new warrior-mate’s hands aloft, a triumphant gleam in his eye. For her part, the tattoo-faced woman at his side fixed a smile upon her face that fooled no one. She knew what was expected of her, and she knew well her new husband’s reputation. If hers was the only belly that swelled from his seed in the years to come, it would be a gods-sent miracle. So, too, were the days of raiding for her clan over. Her new purpose in life was to see to the continuation of her and Rabat’s line. In the coming months, her life would be a paradox: one of subservience, yet more valuable than his once with child.
Rabat and his newly-mated woman strode down the tunnel of stone and earth, bloodily embracing a few close to them along the way. These included both Adissa brothers, the father of his new warrior-mate, and to my surprise- me.
“Well, Degginal- you got your way,” he said, the blood still making his bearded face a ghastly one. “And a Python as a wedding gift? Not too expensive, I hope.”
I smiled as best I could, allowing the man to draw me close to him and touch our foreheads in the manner to which I’d become accustomed.
“We all pitched in,” I said with a smile. “To make your new life as a married man a happy one.”
The man didn’t answer, only roughly patting my cheek like he did and letting a low grumble echo from his throat. His ship’s cargo hold would be packed with additional gifts: rare ores, weapons, and slaves in cryo-pods. Rabat turned and moved on, making his way through the cheering crowd. Two trails of blood followed them, Asha’s simple white tunic still dripping on the stone floor. The noise was deafening, and a raucus celebration would be held immediately after the ceremony. But Rabat and his new bride wouldn’t be present. According to clan tradition, their first night would be spent alone, in his new vessel and surrounded by their dowry. The sooner a child was conceived, the more blessed a warrior-mating was said to be.
I shook my head and looked down at my feet, ignoring the noise and the crowd. Though not a religious man, I found myself pondering whether a sacrifice to the gods of Chun would be appropriate. Soon, Rabat would find his life changed- children, a family, and all the burdens that came with them. His perspective would switch from one of bloody acquisition to stolid safeguarding of what he had accrued. It wouldn’t be easy on either the pirate lord or those around him.
The crowd began to shuffle out of the chamber, following the bloody couple to the frigid surface of Chun. I looked back to the altar at which they’d just been joined.
Perhaps I should offer a sacrifice for myself while I’m at it, I thought.
Glaboski stood over me, preparing the anesthesia. It was time- I would either wake up with new organs and on the road to recovery, or not at all. It mattered little- I hadn’t walked but to evacuate my bowels in the last month and a half, and not at all in the last two weeks. Tubes and drugs of every sort had coursed through my body, keeping me alive but hardly in a state that could be called living. In the few hours per day that I had been awake, it had been all business.
But it’s not about that right now. Now, I finally have time to think. And I don’t think that death is the curse that I’d always imagined. Not compared to this.
If I died on the operating table- what? What would it matter? Would I be mourned? Or would the scraps of my empire be fought over by Marra and Victor like dogs pulling at a side of meat?
I hope not. But I know better.
I let out a slow exhale, pondering the worst. I would like to have seen Marra again. Not like it’s been, all business and politics and scheming. Like before, when she was a girl. Better to die with a friend over a drink and some rush than- I glanced at Glaboski, his cold eyes preparing a vial- than where I’m at now.
Outside the door to the surgical chamber, I heard an urgent pounding at the door. Glaboski, clearly annoyed, sent one of his assistants to answer it. In walked Nicholas Locke, head to toe in Omega black, a dire look in his eye. He’d not yet been informed of his promotion, the business of defining his exact responsibilities not yet complete. Yet he’d been one of the few other than Marra or Victor who could contact me even at such a critical time. Glaboski’s face went from irritation to anger, standing between myself and Locke.
“What is the meaning of this? My patient is about to-”
Nicholas snapped his head to the side, his eyes intensifying. “Silence.”
The doctor took a step back, unaccustomed to being spoken in such a way. He looked behind himself to me, his eyes demanding that I punish the interloper. Instead, I waved him aside, unable to rise but my sense of business demanding that I be informed of what the matter was.
“What-” I swallowed. “What is it, Locke?”
The man’s face remained stern, but his eyes showed signs of worry. “It’s Marra. She-” He produced a portable holo-projector.
“Well, just look.”
He flipped on the device, a grainy holo image appearing. At first, I had trouble telling what it was that I was looking at. It appeared to be drone footage of some sort, with numerous black specks on the surface of a planet. I blinked as the picture came into focus, and I felt my breath die off as I realized that I was looking at. The specks were people- thousands of them, motionless, laying where they had died for kilometers in any direction. But it wasn’t just people. Though not an earthlike world, the planet was a fertile one. The trees and vegetation, too, were blighted and rotting. It was as though all life in the area had simply ceased to be.
I felt my face harden. “What am I looking at?”
Locke switched off the holo-projector and swallowed. “The aftermath of the consiglieri’s attack on the Snakes. Some kind of bioweapon. No warning, no surrender, no comms from the surface answered. She’s moving from settlement to settlement, leaving no survivors. It’s a damned massacre.”
By all the gods. What have you done, girl? “And Victor?”
Locke shook his head. “Unable to contact her. She isn’t answering anyone’s K-casts. What- what would you have us do?”
Hunt her down and destroy her, I wanted but was unable to say. Enforced respect was one thing, but if word got out of Black Omega committing genocide-
I shook my head as much as I was able. “Find my personal comm device,” I said. “And K-cast her directly.”
Locke signalled to one of his guards to search a nearby storage locker, assisted by one of Glaboski’s men. They brought my comm device near me and activated it, the signal reaching across the stars to my consiglieri’s attention. We waited a few tense minutes as the men tried and re-tried to reach my wayward second-in-command.
“Nothing,” said Locke. “Have you any orders?”
If the woman would even accept orders from a sick old man at this point.
I nodded, the effort taking more effort than before. “If you reach her, tell her to stand down. And get Victor.”
Almost immediately, my caporegime’s face appeared, the grainy two-dimensional signal coming through poorly in the medical chamber. He looked like he’d not slept in days.
“Don DeVerre. You should be resting, not worrying about-”
“Marra?” It was all I could do to not smile sadly. I’ve been worrying about her for thirty years.
The man paused, choosing his words carefully. “Then you know.”
I managed another nod. “Yes. How many ships has she taken?”
A look of consternation grew on Victor’s face. “Only the Seren Du. Apparently she’s made some kind of outside deal. Test some experimental bio-weapons for some third party, accept payment under the table. We don't have a name yet, but they’ve been sitting in her ship this entire time. Did you know anything about it?”
I slowly shook my head. “I suspect that there’s quite a lot about our consiglieri that we don’t know.”
Or rather, that no one but myself and that skinny little pet of hers knows about.
Nicholas straightened himself. “That’s not all. I was given orders to drop broadcast beacons in deep space. I didn’t know what they were for, but one activated before it was supposed to. It transmits the planetary coordinates of where Marra is heading after all this- some lava planet I’ve never heard of before. Supposedly she’ll be alone.”
In an instant, I knew what the woman had planned. The conflict for her had become what I’d dreaded. It was less a war between factions and more a personal one between her and Kat von Steuben, each using their authority to sacrifice the men and women under them like pawns on a chessboard. Each had become obsessed with killing the other, and now Marra was offering herself as bait- and in the one place that had held tremendous importance for them both. Was this a calculated trap, or the delusional whisperings of that ghost of a father who lived in her head?
Victor’s steady voice shook me from my musings.
“The transponder on her ship has been deactivated, and the data as to the whereabouts of the remaining sanctuaries has been deleted. There’s no way to track her, and even if we knew where she was going, we wouldn’t be able to get to her in time.”
I closed my eyes, not wanting to believe what I’d heard. So it’s come to this. Marra has finally assumed the full weight of her father’s legacy. Rule by terror, with edicts handed down in the language of brutality. But even Rabat left people alive to terrorize. This is beyond even him.
“Have Nicholas transmit the location of this lava world. Take a task force and deploy a defensive perimeter, but do not attempt to apprehend Marra. And be ready for a fight.”
His face hardening, Victor bowed slightly, his signal cutting out. I looked weakly up at Locke and Glaboski.
“It appears,” I said. “That I’ve been given a motivation to survive.”
Rabat was drunk, even more so than usual. He was stumbling around in his magnificent suite, cursing and haphazardly kicking at the priceless decorations at his feet. I paused, not knowing why I’d been summoned. The pirate lord’s legendary temper had never been directed at me, and as far as I knew I’d never given him a reason for doing so. I ran my hand through my hair- silently cursing the amount of skin my fingers now had to travel across before arriving at my hairline- and pondered how best to approach him.
As it happened, I didn’t need to. My brutish- friend?- saw me and took an unsteady step, holding his bottle high in the air as he made his way towards me. I tensed, not quite knowing what to expect. He slammed a rough hand down hard on my shoulder, steadying himself as much as greeting me.
“A girl,” he spat without preamble. “A fucking girl. That’s what’s been seeded in her belly. A girl, who will grow up, throw aside her name, and bear bastards for some clansman. That’s it. That’s the legacy of the Morgans. Pathetic.”
I shook my head, not comprehending. Asha’s pregnancy had been happy news, with feasting and renewed vows of fealty. Based on the timing, it had been close enough to the day of their warrior mating that the priests declared it a blessing from the gods. And for a time, Rabat had even seemed content, knowing that his legacy was one step closer to being perpetuated.
I stammered, grasping for words. Why would a daughter put him in such a state?
“But surely, you can simply wait until the child is born and-”
Rabat gripped the back of my head, threatening to crush my skull in his grip, his voice crescendoing into a roar. “No, we can’t! Her womb, it’s-”
The man looked down, eyes wild. “- it’s damaged. Scarred. The doctors can’t say how, but it’s getting worse. Once the child is born, she’ll be the last that Asha can carry.”
The man released me, punching the wall, leaving an indent in the hard composite material. My heart pounded, fearing for my own safety. He turned and stood away from me, taking another sip and silently trembling. Finally, he spoke, slurring his words but meaning each of them.
“And it was you who pushed for the union, was it not?”
Before I could answer, the man had leaped, pinning me to the wall with one hand around my throat. His breath stank of alcohol, and his eyes were bloodshot and feral. His hand closed, and I found myself unable to breathe. Clawing at his grip achieved nothing.
“Yes. It was you. You and that Adissa bastard. Thought you’d pawn off some beauty with a useless quim to me, did you? Is that it? Answer me!”
I continued to pull at his fingers, but his grip only tightened. In my panic, my heart was beating even faster. Dark spots were appearing at the edge of my vision, my lungs trying and failing to pump air into themselves.
Rabat let out a war scream and threw me against the opposite bulkhead, the impact breaking a priceless vase with some exotic, glowing plant in it. The idea of living in luxury hadn’t sat well with him, but Asha had been raised in such surroundings. I coughed and gasped for air, the man closing the distance between us with remarkable speed. As before, he hoisted me up, the madness still raging in his eyes.
“You got me into this vat of biowaste,” he said. “And by the gods of my father you’ll be the one to get me out.”
I gulped, grateful that the man wasn’t choking the life from me but also dreading what he had on mind. But he didn’t go on, only releasing me and taking the final swig from his bottle. He stumbled away, leaning against the wall for support. With a weary gesture he dismissed me.
“Now fuck off,” he slurred. “And see to that worthless bitch. Bring her here in an hour. I’m sleeping in my ship.”
“But doctor, he’s not stable! The bio-gel is barely sealed around the arteries. If you started on a lung, it could-”
A warm voice interrupted the first with an air of authority. “It could save him. Look at them! Black and brown from a lifetime of abuse. It’s a miracle that they’ve lasted this long. No. We do this now, while the chest cavity is open. Hand me the laser-scalpel.”
“Doctor! His neuro-readings! He’s coming to!”
The warm voice grew less so. “Damn that man and his tolerance for anything narcotic. Thirty more ccs- stat!”
“Yes, doctor!”
So this is what it’s like. Close to death. Chest ripped open. People digging at my innards. Not so bad…
The first sound that I ever heard Marrakech make was a wail. It seemed that even at birth, she was unhappy and ready to fight. The newborn kicked and flailed, protesting the chill of the ward’s crisp air compared to the warmth of her mother’s womb. Asha collapsed, spent from the effort of delivery. It had not been an easy one. For weeks, Marra had stubbornly refused to enter the world, growing almost dangerously large past her due date. It was almost as if she knew that she was better off inside her mother, refusing to be born in a wretched place like Pegasi.
But born she was, in a pool of her mother’s blood. The doctors seized her at once, cutting the umbilical cord and giving transfusions to her mother. Asha was pale and weak, the hours of labor hard on her. In another place and age, she would have almost certainly died. But she wasn’t in another place and age- she was on New Cambria, mated to an infamous pirate lord who had imported physicians beyond the skill of anyone native to the system. In the months following his initial outburst, he’d arrived at the cold acceptance that his first legitimate child- his carnal exploits were widespread and often, though neither mothers nor bastards had come forth- would be his only legitimate child.
I had been the closest person to Asha as she gave birth, witnessing in Rabat’s place as his daughter came into the world. The man himself remained in a corner, his dark eyes beholding the event in silence. In a hurry, the nurse handed the wailing babe to me, pushing me out of the way to aid the doctor in saving the exhausted new mother’s life. The tiny, newborn bundle had been wrapped tightly in white cloth, calmed somewhat by the familiar feeling of surrounding pressure.
Even when I was one, I had never been around children much. My life had been mainly my mother and Dante. Soon enough, it was only Dante. Yet in that moment I was struck that even with both parents in the room, I had been the first- and only- one to hold their child. It had already been decided as to what her name would be, by Asha and without any input from her warrior mate. In the time that she’d conceived and her future infertility revealed, he’d barely spoken to her, relying on me to relay messages back and forth between them.
And so I had, staying at his side and doing my best to run the nightclub from a distance. As the months had passed, I’d come to know Asha far better than he himself did. Rumors of an affair between myself and his pregnant warrior mate reached my ears and Rabat’s, but both of us knew the truth. I was uniquely trustworthy among his men for such a delicate task, and I did nothing to dishonor his confidence.
Not knowing what else to do, I cautiously walked up to Rabat. Even from a few paces away, I could smell the acrid rotgut on him. Swallowing, I offered the squirming, cooing bundle in my hands to the dread pirate lord of Pegasi.
“Marrakech Imogen Morgan,” I said. “Your daughter and heir.”
Father and newborn daughter looked at each other for the first time. Unsteadily, Rabat Morgan reached out to touch her, but paused. His fingers slowly curled into a trembling fist. His hand shaking, he lowered his arm and took a step back. An indescribable look twisted his face as he produced a bottle and took a swig.
“See to Asha,” he said without tone. “And speak no more of heirs.”
“By all the gods. How did this man live to be as old as he is? Just look at all this.”
The same authoritative voice as before came through. “Don’t swear to the gods. They aren’t the ones performing this delicate work. Swear to me.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“And see to those readings. He’s coming around again...”
The ships of Rabat’s fleet were all around, surrounding the canopy of The Devil You Know, Rabat’s Python from when he had been warrior-mated. The rest of the fleet was departing from the surface of New Cambria, securing the space in low orbit for their pirate lord to join. Though the pirate lord owned several larger vessels, he’d taken a preference to the older, more modestly-sized ship. He could go anywhere in it, docking and doing business at remote outposts that an Anaconda couldn’t. But that wasn’t all. As time passed, he had been setting off for longer and longer voyages, raiding ever deeper into the Bubble, and it was easier to lay low in a Python.
This time, he was pirating an entire Imperial merchant convoy. In fact, the gleaming white vessels of the Empire were fast becoming his favorite targets. The strikes had gained for him ever greater fame, wealth, and ignominy- with the Imperial navy always arriving too late. The price on his head was also growing. Three different bounty hunters with that poncy Achenarian accent had been found and eliminated last month alone.
“I’ll be gone for a month,” he was saying. “And when I get back, you and I are going to have a talk.”
I was instantly on guard. Rabat’s “talks” with subordinates had a way of working out poorly for them. Was I suspected of some betrayal? The club’s business yield hadn’t slowed, not was anyone under my authority acting up. I rubbed the back of my head, still not used to the buzzed hair. A week ago I’d given up the pretense that I could sport long, shoulder-length locks. There was no need to look like a balding creep trying to hang on to his youth, not when I already ran a nightclub and half looked the part anyway.
“What kind of talk?”
The man didn’t answer immediately, only throwing an arm around me and gesturing to the ships still lifting off before us.
“This time next month, you’ll either be Deggie the nightclub owner, or Degginal DeVerre- right hand of Rabat Morgan. All in, or all out. The choice will be yours.”
I pursed my lips, not knowing what to say. I’d been running with Rabat for years, both of us prospering from our partnership. And I’d been a regular part of his crew, too. But this was new. Rabat’s second-in-command, whoever they were, was a powerhouse in his or her own right. They would oversee his criminal empire, hold the power of life and death, and be the closest council that the pirate lord would keep. I’d never aspired to that level, watching men and women come and go as his right hand- some on their own, others dismissed in various fashions for some shortcoming or another. A few hadn’t made it out alive.
But none of that mattered right now. Something major was happening, and Rabat needed to make sure of my loyalty. I looked sideways at the man and tried my best to keep my face impassive.
“What are you saying?”
A reflective, almost deep look settled into the man’s eyes. His face was bathed in the red-orange glow of the New Cambrian sunrise. From a certain angle, his features almost passed as kind. He stared into the star as long as could before turning to me.
“My family is nearly extinct. Grandfather always liked to say that the greatest danger to a Morgan is another Morgan. He wasn’t wrong. My father killed him, and then turned on his brothers. When he died, I did what I had to do to mine to secure my place. It is the way of things.”
I held my breath, sensing that Rabat was speaking only with great difficulty. As he was during raids, he was sober.
“How can I help?”
The pirate lord ignored my question, looking again into the distance. We were alone on the bridge, but that would end soon. Soon, Rabat’s co-pilot- he always piloted the Devil You Know himself- would join us, and I would need to leave.
“I’m short of brothers, Deggie. Have been for years. Oh, I’ve no regrets of course. They were sons of devils, and the only reason that they didn’t backstab me is because I backstabbed them first. But a man always wants what he doesn’t have. I’m no different.”
Again, Rabat turned to me, his mouth set. “I’ve often come close to thinking of you as a brother. In fact, I’d like to. But I just can’t know for sure. Not until you prove yourself.”
Not knowing how to react, I shrugged. “I don’t know what I can do to prove my loyalty more than I already have.”
A knowing look flashed in his eye. “You’ve been good for business. And you’ve even been a friend of sorts, as close to it that men like us can ever have. But any idiot knows enough to not ruin a good thing by getting greedy. What I’m talking about is family.”
Still unsure, I shook my head. “I thought you said that the greatest danger to a Morgan was another Morgan.”
“So I did,” he said. “But I have a task for you. A delicate one. One that you can say no to, and we will part ways without rancor.”
I narrowed my eyes. It would be no easy thing to untangle my affairs from Rabat’s, and he knew it. “What’s the job?”
Not even trusting the solitude of his own ship’s bridge, the man leaned forward and whispered in my ear, telling me the way to seal our brotherhood once and for all.
“No,” I said, recoiling and taking a step back. “You can’t be serious.”
The man looked at the horizon. The fleet was nearly done lifting off, and soon he would have to leave.
“A Morgan doesn’t share power,” he said, his eyes hardening. “And the power I speak of is the most important I’ll ever have.”
I shook my head, still in shock at his request. “But this- there must be some other way. You could-”
Rabat cut me off, interrupting in his deep, authoritative voice. “No. It is the only way. And you’re the one to do it. She knows you. Trusts you. And if you don’t, someone else will. That I promise you.”
Looking away, I opened and closed my mouth, trying and failing to form words. “I-”
Again, he interrupted. “Say nothing. You know what I want, and you know how I want it to happen. It’s all very simple, you see. If the job’s been done, I’ll know that I have a true brother. If not, I’ll know that I don’t.”
“Doctor, we’re losing him!”
The same warm voice as before sounded in my mind, but with urgency. “Stims- stat!”
“But his heart! It’s untested, it could-”
“It’s stronger than the rest of him. And get that damned neuro reading back down, stat! I won’t be the only one thrown out the airlock if he has any memory of this!”
“Yes, doctor! Administering now…”
Rabat was alone in his chambers. The lights were off, and in the dim surroundings the monster of a man managed to look small. He was sat in his high-backed chair, his eyes gazing dully into a roaring holo-fire. I timidly stepped beside him, my heart still pounding and my legs weak with adrenaline. I had just done the deed that he’d wanted of me, and then almost immediately summoned to his chambers. The man had lied to me, in his ship as his fleet was departing- he’d never set off for Imperial space. Instead he’d waited, hidden and watching my every move to see what I’d do.
The pirate lord didn’t look up, only continuing to gaze into the fire. It would have been obtuse to ask what he was doing here. We were well past the point of mentioning the obvious.
“So?” he asked quietly.
I took a breath before answering. “It’s done.”
Rabat still didn’t deviate from staring at the dancing flames. “And the blade? It is soiled?”
‘The blade.’ It was a blithe way to refer to the ancient, ceremonial dagger of immense value, used by the various clans in Suya for their rituals. It had cost a fortune to smuggle from their temple, but Rabat hadn’t even looked at the cost.
“Sunk into her chest, as instructed.”
Again, the dread lord of Pegasi didn’t acknowledge me. “Then the savages have struck the first blow against us. At dawn we rally the fleet to avenge my beloved warrior-mate.”
Rabat had long sought a pretext for subjugating the clans of Suya, and now he had it. There was nothing more to be said, so I bowed slightly and turned to leave. The child- Marra, as she was known after a year- was still as I had left her. Crying in darkness and solitude, wondering in her simple way why her mother wasn’t attending her.
I hadn’t made it two steps when Rabat’s gravelly voice rumbled behind me. “I didn’t dismiss you, DeVerre.”
I froze, my heart pounding. Slowly turning around, I heard the sound of the chair creaking and the silhouette of Morgan drawing himself up to his full height. Though I held fast, I couldn’t be certain as to what was about to happen. The man reached out and grasped my shoulder with a massive hand, nodding almost imperceptibly. It gripped the side of my face, the rough fingers curling around the back of my head. With rough lips and a sandpaper beard, Rabat Morgan kissed me on both cheeks, fire and madness in his eyes. It was all I could do to meet his gaze. I would never forgive myself for what I’d done.
“From this day,” he solemnly intoned, “we are brothers.”